Cancer is one of diseases that occupy the leading cause of death of the modern people and is caused by mutations in genes that regulate normal cell growth. It is defined as a malignant tumor that does not follow normal cell differentiation and growth patterns.
Traditionally, cancer has been treated by one or a combination of three major therapies: surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Specifically, the cancer treatment with surgery, i.e., a method of removing tumor tissue, is very effective in removing tumors from specific sites, for example, breast, colon and skin. However, it is not suitable for treating either tumors present in a site such as the vertebra or dispersible tumors. In some cases, such a surgical therapy encounters a problem in that adverse effects such as organ removal and tumor metastasis cannot be prevented.
Meanwhile, the radiotherapy is used for acute inflammatory diseases, benign or malignant tumors, endocrine dysfunction, allergic diseases and the like. Generally, such a radiotherapy is effectively used for malignant tumors consisting of cells that divide rapidly. However, this radiotherapy can result in a weakness or loss of the function of normal tissue and a cause of skin diseases in the treatment sites to which it had been applied. In addition, in case of infants in which the development of organs progresses, the radiotherapy can cause serious adverse effects, such as mental retardation or bone growth disorders. Further, it gives a pain to a patient during treatment.
Similarly, the chemotherapy is also widely used to treat breast, lung and testicle cancers by disturbing the replication or metastasis of cancer cells. However, it is known that anticancer agents exhibit toxicity not only against cancer cells but also against normal cells of a patient. In addition, such a chemotherapy generally suffers from disadvantages in that hospital treatment is required in severe cases or an analgesic needs to be used to relieve a pain.
Thus, many studies on the development of new drugs and formulations having anticancer activity, which inhibit cancer cell growth and kill cancer cells, have been conducted. In particular, studies on the development of anticancer agents derived from natural materials, which have little side effects, have received a great deal of attention.
Accordingly, the present inventors have made many efforts to develop a natural material-derived anticancer composition, which has minimized side effects compared to conventional anticancer agents and exhibits excellent anticancer activity through its involvement in the mechanism of development of cancer. As a result, the present inventors have found that a homogeneous cell line derived from the cambium of Panax ginseng including wild ginseng or ginseng, a lysate thereof, an extract thereof and a culture thereof show cancer cell-killing activity, thereby completing the present invention.